Zojirushi BB-HAC10 Review

Baking bread doesn’t have to seem like a waste for singles and smaller families. Especially not with the Zojirushi BB-HAC10 bread machine. Whether you find yourself buying loaves of bread from the store and throwing half of it away as it expires, or wanting to bake a fresh loaf of bread but knowing that you can’t finish it before it spoils, the Zojirushi BB-HAC10 would seem like the custom-made machine for you.

The Zojirushi BB-HAC10 is a small bread machine that makes a 1-pound loaf of bread intended for singles and small families. When it comes to freshly baked bread, it should be eaten within two days of baking, so some larger families may find the Zojirushi BB-HAC10 perfect for them if they don’t normally consume large loaves.

This bread maker comes in white and stands vertically tall. It bakes bread that comes out in almost a squared shape, but gives you good-sized slices. Unlike its BB-PAC20 cousin which makes 2-pound loaves, the Zojirushi BB-HAC10 takes much less counter space. It also has simpler settings than the BB-PAC20. You can choose regular, firm, or soft bread; regular or light crust; French bread, pasta/cookie dough, cake, or jam settings. This machine will make a variety of breads, rolls, and croissants too.

Another feature that is different from the BB-PAC20 is instead of two kneading blades, this machine only has one. This is because it’s a smaller machine and doesn’t need two to knead a 1-pound loaf. One is enough. Like the BB-PAC20, the BB-HAC10 ‘s bake pan is removable, so you can easily clean it.

Our Zojirushi BB-HAC10 Review

Our first impression after unwrapping the bread machine was that it had a striking resemblance to the Zojirushi water boiler and warmers. The shape is almost the same – standing vertically. This isn’t a surprise since Zojirushi started making water boiler and warmers first and later started to produce bread machines. We just thought it looked trademark Japanese. The design is nice and compact.

The next thing we noticed was the LCD panel. We felt it was easy enough to follow. You can select bread textures in firm, regular, or soft. Then input the type of crust you want: regular or light. Then you would choose if you want to use the quick baking mode which bakes bread in about 2 hours or the delayed timer mode which starts after up to 13 hours, allowing you to set the bread machine to bake closer to the morning so that you wake up to fresh bread. We absolutely love using the timer on Zojirushi machines, because it also prepares the ingredients to the optimal temperature before baking. If you want to make something other than bread, simply select one of the other settings such as cookie dough, French bread, or cake. We think that these settings will be more than enough for anyone looking to make bread and some specialty items. But we did notice that the machine doesn’t have options to select the time of rise, knead, or bake. If you want customizable options like this on a Zojirushi, we recommend getting the BB-PAC20.

As far as performance goes, we tested the machine by making 3 different things: basic bread, bread with nuts, and cake. With the basic bread, we set the machine at soft texture and regular crust. We also used the delayed timer with this. When we came back to the machine, we found that the bread was nicely puffed up at the top. The bread turned out nice. If you follow the instructions in the manual like we did, you should have no problem baking bread even without any experience. One thing to mention is that because this is a smaller loaf, you’ll feel like you’ll have more crust than usual. We don’t find this to be a problem, but it’s something to note if you don’t like crusts. The only way to avoid this is probably to get a machine that bakes a larger loaf.

When we tried the bread with nuts, we set it at regular texture and light crust. We put half a cup of nuts in our bread. We don’t really recommend going over half a cup given the size of the bread. This time, the bread was a little firmer than the last and there was a noticeable difference in the color of the crust. The machine seemed to incorporate the nuts well so we think it should handle nuts fine. Finally, we tried to make cake. The machine does all the mixing and baking after we add the ingredients, so we enjoyed letting it do all the work while we ate the cake in the end.

Zojirushi BB-HAC10 Rating

Features

Quality of Bread

Price

Performance

Versatility

Summary

The Zojirushi BB-HAC10 is one of the best options for singles and small families. It has the typical attention to detail that Zojirushi puts on all its machines. Most importantly, it makes great fluffy bread.

Concluding Thoughts

The Zojirushi BB-HAC10 handled all our tests well. It is a simple machine to use. It has just the right amount of settings to handle any type of bread and a few more settings for some specialty items. It’s the perfect machine for singles and families of 2 or for people who eat little and don’t want to waste bread. Because it did well in our tests, it’s well-built, and it has a beautiful, compact design, we really like this machine. Good job Zojirushi!